Final Cut Pro 12.3 | Every New Feature in 3 Minutes

Apple just dropped a new update for FCP, and I'm going to run you through everything that's new in about two minutes. Let's cut out the fluff and get into it. This is the quick-reference version; if you want my honest take on what's actually worth your time, the full 12.3 breakdown has ratings for every feature.

Auto captions (finally)

Select your dialogue, go to the magic wand icon, hit Generate Captions, and press Subtitles. Before you do anything though, go into your settings and drop the default subtitle duration down to about half a second, otherwise they end up reading like a novel. Also worth knowing: right-click any title in your title browser and you can now make it the default subtitle.

Auto Masks

My favorite by far. It identifies what's in your clip and isolates your subject, or whatever you want isolated, automatically. No manual tracking needed. And you can use it directly inside your color correction tools, which is honestly insane. I go deep on the good, the bad, and the fix in my Auto Masks truth video.

Match Color upgrade

Pick a frame from another clip and FCP matches the color for you. The difference now: you can go in and fine-tune the sliders it adjusted instead of just accepting whatever it gives you like we used to have to.

Edit Detection

Drop a pre-edited clip on your timeline, right-click, and press Detect Edits. FCP splits it back into the individual clips at the cut points automatically.

Two-up trimming display

Now persistent: when you're trimming, you get a locked side-by-side view of your outgoing and incoming frames the whole time. Super useful for knowing exactly where to park media on your timeline.

The rapid-fire rest

Send to Pixelmator Pro: you can now send a single frame directly to Pixelmator Pro with one click. Great for thumbnails and photo editing.

Swap clips: a new keyboard shortcut swaps clip positions instantly on your primary storyline: Option plus the left and right arrow keys.

Select connected media: press Control Command A to select a clip with all of its connected media, so copying a main clip and everything attached is easier.

That's the ultra quick version, and it may be a little too quick. For the full breakdown of every feature with my honest take on what's actually worth your time, hit the box below.